


The King to be

by Descendant_of_Truth



Category: Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Zi-O
Genre: I started writing this when only one episode was out, In which Sougo needs a counselor, This was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but it escalated and now it just updates whenever I feel like it, so if the characterization is a little wonky at times that's why
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-07-07 14:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15909738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Descendant_of_Truth/pseuds/Descendant_of_Truth
Summary: There's nothing wrong with you. You've just always known you were going to be a king. There's nothing wrong with that, right? Right. It's all a matter of time, and everything will be just fine.What are you talking about? Everything is already fine. It always has.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Writing the summary made me inclined to write more because the summary turned out just as good as the story. Whoops.
> 
> Anyway, I just wanted to write something creepy about Sougo because the first episode came out and I have Ideas. So here they are.

You were born to be a king.  
  
You don't know how you know that; you just do. You can feel it in every fiber of your being, telling you to take things easy for now, to worry less about all that homework school insists on giving you and focus on something else, instead. You vaguely wonder how much you're going to change the education system once you become king. But that doesn't matter right now. You have time. You can have fun when you get home.  
  
You're surrounded by clocks on the daily. Their tick-tocking has become music to your ears, another subtle reminder that the only thing keeping you from your dream is time. But that's okay; you're not too worried about it. Everything will be okay when it happens. You're smart enough, you can make things happen if you really try. It's just not time yet.  
  
Becoming king is on your mind frequently enough, but it's not something you think about. You just know it. It's nice, having such a solid goal for your future when everyone around you is silently panicking about their career choice. It gives you time to think about other, more fun things in life, like having a nice bike ride around town.  
  
At the same time, you're seeing injustice everywhere. On the news, at school, wherever you go, there's always another problem, another person getting hurt. You hate it. You don't know the rootcause of the problem and there's no way a single person can solve it all at once. Unless, of course, you were the king. And you're definitely going to be king one day.  
  
It's good to know you have a destiny. It's good to know that everyone is wrong. That everyone insulting your dreams for being "stupid" and "unrealistc" just don't know any better. They're harmless. They can't hurt you. Even when you go home recovering from a nasty head wound you got from someone flipping you onto the concrete, you're not hurt. You're going to become king someday. You'll survive. You know better than them. And there's nothing wrong with that.  
  
No, there isn't anything wrong with it. Nothing has ever been wrong with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this on a 15-minute timer so that's why it's super short. The other chapters aren't going to be super long, most likely, but longer than this one.


	2. Chapter 2

You have friends now, you think.

Neither of them have verbally confirmed that, but you’re sure that’s where you stand with them. It’s nice, to have friends for once. Sure, everyone likes you--why wouldn’t they? You’re nice and not weird at all. But someone liking you doesn’t automatically make you friends, does it? You have to spend time together.

And you spend nothing if not time with Geiz and Tsukuyomi. Sure, they’re from fifty years in the future and your life had gotten significantly more dangerous since they showed up, but you trust them more than you do anyone else in your school.

They’re the ones who know how you turn out in the future, which is… less than ideal, to say the least. It’s a good thing they’re keeping an eye on you now. You don’t  _ want _ to be cruel. You don’t want your dream, your  _ destiny,  _ to become twisted. You want to be someone people will love.

Not that you’re unlovable  _ now, _ but you’re not exactly reaching a wide audience, either. No, it’s the future you that has you concerned. But even still, you know that your new friends will keep you on the right path. And if they can’t, well…

You suppose it’s alright if you die.

It’s just numbers at that point, right? One corrupted, twisted life for thousands of innocent ones. It makes sense. And it’s not like you’d have to ask Geiz twice, anyway.

You… try not to think about that possibility too much. It’ll happen if it happens, but you’re very focused on becoming a  _ good _ king right now. No point in thinking about it. Your friends will do what’s right; you can be sure of that.

What you’re not sure about is Woz. You want to consider him a friend, too, but you’ve never had a halfway normal conversation with him in your life. It’s nice to have a dedicated follower, but he’s not quite dedicated in the way you’d like him to be. You don’t think he quite grasps the idea that you want to be good. Maybe you can help him understand in time. For now, he’s at least been useful to you. He’s the one that made you a Kamen Rider, after all.

And what an adventure it is, being a Kamen Rider! It’s like a new purpose has been given to your life. You’ve always had a purpose, of course! Becoming king is what’s been driving you for as long as you can remember. But it’s nice to have short-term goals for once. You can’t count the number of times you just… had no idea what to do with your day.

But you don’t have to think like that! You have Another Riders to search for, battles to fight, Time Jackers to stop. You’re helping people now. You’re going to become a good king, you have friends, superpowers and you’re  _ helping people _ . You’re more productive than ever and your friends won’t have to resort to killing you because there’s nothing evil about you. Well, Geiz tries to kill you more often than you’d like, but you don’t think he really means it.

At least, you hope not. If he really wanted you dead, then he could have taken you out while you were sleeping, right? He lives with you, he’s had plenty of opportunities. Sure, he knocked you down a staircase once, but it’s not like he’s the  _ first  _ one to do that. You’ve thrown  _ yourself _ down a staircase out of necessity before, you know how to deal with that kind of thing.

Though admittedly, things tended to hurt more now that you’ve been fighting the Another Riders. It’s a good thing your armor is so strong, or all those attacks would have left much more of a mark than the bruises you’ve accumulated. And how awkward would  _ that _ be to explain to your uncle?

You’re just glad your face hasn’t been on the receiving end of most of the damage. You really don’t want your uncle to worry, and you’ve never been great at hiding injuries if your clothes couldn’t cover them. Maybe you’ll ask Tsukuyomi to use that fancy tablet of hers to heal your face up if the time comes.

For now, you’re fairly content with the turn your life has taken. It hasn’t always been easy, but it’s better than what you had before. Not to say that there was anything wrong, because there wasn’t, but it’s still an upgrade. Even if it hurts sometimes, you can be happy with this.

You’ll have to be, won’t you? After all, it’s not like stopping is an option. It never is for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably add more notes once I can think of what to say, but for now I hope you liked reading this! Be sure to let me know what you think in the comments.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a setting for once, and Sougo's a bit more bothered by the end of episode 14 than he'd like to think.

You open your eyes and take to staring at the ceiling for the third time that night. You don’t want to admit it, but you had been through a lot that day. Normally you were able to shake things off easier than this, but you suppose that nothing in your life quite compared to becoming a ghost.

Still, you just wanted to sleep. Why must your brain keep reminding you how scary it was to look at your own unconscious body from the outside? Or nobody being able to see you, or hear your voice? God, you could have screamed all you wanted and nobody would hear you…

Except for Takeru, of course. You’d like to talk to him again. You aren’t sure if you could quite call him a friend, exactly, but he struck you as an extremely kind person. All the Kamen Riders you’ve met so far have been kind, but Takeru was by far the most open, and on some strange level, seemed to know what you were going through.

Well, he  _ was _ Kamen Rider Ghost… maybe the name was more literal than you thought. The idea that he still understood what it was like to be a ghost even with his memories being altered by the timeline was unsettling, somehow.

Unsettling, yet a much better distraction than everything else on your mind that managed to sneak through the cracks in your thoughts. You let out a sigh. You thought you were better than this by now. You thought you didn’t care if anyone hurt you anymore. Since when did you care about what Woz did? Why should his alliance with the Time Jackers bother you so much?

_ He betrayed me, _ that awful voice in your head cried.  _ He swore his loyalty to me, and then he helped rip my soul back out of my body. _

You don’t know that’s what happened.

_ It is what happened! I trusted him and he  _ smiled _ while I could barely breathe! _

You didn’t care when anyone else did something like that, you don’t see why you should care now.

_ But you did. And you do. _

God, why can’t you just shut up? It gets so tiring when you argue with yourself. So what if you’re weirdly broken up about this? It doesn’t matter. Nothing really matters until you become king--a good one, that is. You’ve survived everything until now because of your destiny. What made you think Woz was really a threat to that? You had already acknowledged that you weren’t exactly friends. You weren’t a king yet, how could you expect a servant to treat you like one? What a fool you were sometimes.

That’s right; the pain you were feeling wasn’t Woz’s fault, not really. Maybe he did something wrong, but everyone has at some point in their lives. You don’t know his side of the story. Who are you to say whether he really betrayed you or not?

_ So we’re having  _ this _ conversation again, huh? _ The little voice responded. But you could tell it was losing strength. Maybe that voice was as fed up with you as you are of it. Maybe if you both get tired enough, you’ll fall asleep on your own.

Look at you, plotting strategies against yourself. You were going to be an awesome king if you were this tactical in practice.

You’ll ask Woz about his decision the first chance you get, you decide. It’s not good to keep yourself up all night thinking about what one person did without knowing everything that’s going on. You can get mad later, if it’s actually worth it.

And… maybe you won’t seek out Takeru again. He was so unabashedly bright and cheerful, like he had nothing to hide from anyone. Nothing like you… or Geiz and Tsukuyomi, for that matter. Someone so genuine wasn’t a good fit for you. You already don’t deserve your uncle.

_ Stop thinking like that, _ the other side of your head responded. It sounded tired. And for once, you couldn’t think of anything to say in return. You just want to sleep.

Hopefully, nothing else you’ve locked away in your mind will come out while you do.


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, why did you decide to become a king?” Tsukuyomi asks one day, at breakfast. You respond with the same thing you’ve told yourself more times than you can count.

“No real reason, I’ve just always felt like I was born to be one.”

That’s all it was. There didn’t have to be anything complicated about it. Why did Tsukuyomi have to think there was a reason? As if destiny was ever that coherent. No, it was always just something you knew.

So why,  _ why _ did your uncle have to mention the dream? You didn’t want to think about it, and you were hoping he had forgotten at this point. How long had it been since you mentioned it to him? Why couldn’t he just ignore your problems like everyone else?

Thankfully, you didn’t have to think about how to creatively dodge the questions that were absolutely on your friends’ minds, because Woz decided to interject at that exact moment. He even had a broken clock for your uncle to keep busy with in another room.

A part of you wanted to degrade him for that--did he really see your uncle as nothing more than a distraction? A the same time, though, you were grateful for the privacy; you had some choice words for Woz after what he pulled the other day.

But of course, you’re not mad. Not at all. You’re just looking for answers, to know what his plan is. You kept your voice even, choosing your words carefully as not to upset him. A part of your mind notes the fact that you’ve gotten very good at this part.

Not that Woz had anything to say for himself in return; he’s better at deflecting conversations than even you. And as much as you wanted to pry the answers out of him, you couldn’t deny that the events outside were, in fact, a much more pressing concern.

A… frighteningly familiar concern.

In the distance, there were at least five impossibly large mechs, shaped almost like dragons and clearly ready to start crumbling the nearby buildings. You’ve never had your heart sink like this before. You always knew this was going to happen, but you didn’t think it would be this soon--

You suddenly notice that Geiz is talking to you, asking about the dream you mentioned. That’s odd, did  _ you _ say anything about it? You must have spoken out loud without realizing it. Normally you would have denied him a proper response, but with your nightmare literally coming to life in front of your eyes, you just didn’t have the strength to keep this to yourself anymore.

So, you told them about the dream. A dream you had tried to get out of your head for years. A dream that wouldn’t stop persisting, showing you the horrors of everyone dying around you, helpless to do anything to stop it. You told them about the man who showed up each time, whose face you could never make out, who told you that you were going to become a king. That you were going to save the world from destruction.

You told them that it was why you decided to become king. You didn’t tell them how it haunted you day in and day out until you drowned it out with everything you could. How it convinced you that you could survive anything no matter how much pain you were in, because you  _ needed _ to be alive when it was finally time to save everyone.

They don’t have to know any of that. Nobody has to. It’s already more emotional baggage than you’d like; no point in spreading it to your friends.

Besides, there wasn’t any time to talk about it, even if you wanted to. There was a person in gold armor attacking Geiz and Tsukuyomi--apparently on your future self’s orders? There was no way  _ you _ would want them hurt, they were your friends!

But you guess Oma Zi-o didn’t see them that way.

Woz was suddenly beside you again, doing little to ease the state of panic you had gotten yourself into. For once, you chose to ignore his cryptic message and start looking for your friends, instead. How had they managed to get so far away so quickly?

You ran back to your house faster than you ever had in your life, scrambling for one of the many devices you’ve accumulated so far--the Search Hawk. You had no idea how it worked, but it always managed to find who it was looking for. You shakily asked it to find Geiz and Tsukuyomi, and after a brief startup, it took off.

Sure enough, it led you to a warehouse where the two had managed to escape. You breathed a sigh of relief. There was no telling what you would’ve done if they were hurt or captured.

Which was why your brain had such a difficult time processing what happened next. Geiz was transforming with such a serious look on his face, and before you could ask any questions, started swinging his axe at you. You narrowly avoided each blow, barely getting a word out while he spoke only of destroying you.

That  _ is _ what he came back in time for, wasn’t it. But after the first few attempts, you started to assume he just didn’t want to anymore. You always thought he kept saying it to keep up some kind of front, and it’s not like you wouldn’t understand why. You put up fronts all the time. You had so many fronts you weren’t always sure where the back was--it wasn’t hard to think that Geiz was doing something similar.

But had he really  _ meant it _ every time he said he was going to kill you?

No, there was no way that was the case! Geiz, despite his words, had been kind to you. He wouldn’t want to admit that, but he’s helped you more than once. Maybe he was just a bit more conflicted than you were giving him credit for.

Besides, the armored person was back and trying to hurt Geiz again--this wasn’t the time to wonder if you were an idiot for thinking your friend actually cared about you. All that mattered for the moment was that you help him.

But in the end, you couldn’t even do that, could you? No, that Tsukasa guy just had to come in and keep you from your real target. You just wanted to save Geiz--but in his own words, he had no reason to be saved. You’re starting to wish everyone would just stop talking. Especially Tsukasa--or Decade, as he was now.

“Don’t you get it? Geiz isn’t your comrade,” he insisted. God, he really did sound like that one part of your head that spoke up at the worst times. For once, you’re glad you’re in a situation where it’s perfectly acceptable to punch him in the face. It’s not something you usually get to do to your doubts.

You heard Woz’ voice behind you, on a flight of stairs. You had to admit, his ability to show up out of nowhere was quickly losing its endearing quality. You shut down his claims in a slightly more aggressive way than you’re used to; getting  _ yourself _ to quiet down was usually easier than this.

There’s a lot that happens in a few seconds, but you manage to process a strange ripple in the air and being shot a few times by Decade. And suddenly, you’re waking up.

Your body aches all over. You don’t think you broke anything during your fight with Decade, and your face feels relatively okay, so you probably don’t have to worry about any backlash from your uncle. Unfortunately, you quickly realize that that’s the only positive takeaway from your situation.

There’s a massive statue in front of you. You recognize yourself in one of the sculptures, in the position you had taken on for your transformation. On either side, there are statues of every Kamen Rider you had met and then some.

Tsukuyomi, who must have gone through the portal with you, confirms your suspicions: this is 2068, where you had supposedly become the worst king imaginable. This was never something you wanted to see, but now that you were here, you felt like you had to see all of it.

You regretted what you saw.

Yes, you figured it would be bad--Geiz was trying to kill you for a reason, after all--but you never would have imagined it would be this horrible. People had little to no shelter, food looked terrifyingly scarce, and nobody was completely uninjured or clean.

There was no way you would do this, right? You weren’t… you were a lot of things, but you weren’t a bad person. Just looking at the state of this future made you feel sick. Surely that had to be proof you wouldn’t cause this?

You’re transported into an empty clearing by a giant mechanical dragon, but that’s the least alarming thing that’s happened to you today. No, you’re more concerned with the concealed person in front of you.

“Let’s talk about the dream,” he says. You don’t fully understand what he means at first. But the second he starts describing it, you know exactly who he is. You try to control your breathing, but it keeps coming out heavier than you want. You’ve never wanted to run away and bury yourself under something as much as you do now.

The cloth concealing his face finally lifted, leaving you with the truth that you already knew but made you want to faint.

“Then… I really am Oma Zi-o?”

Your voice came out just above a whisper, and with that one sentence, you felt yourself breaking.

“Don’t tell me you were in denial of that?”

But then, you were already cracked from the start. You just filled the cracks with glue and hoped you would stay together.

“Did you really think you would not become Oma Zi-o?”

You had hoped. You had hoped beyond the limits of reason that you wouldn’t become the monster in front of you. It didn’t matter how many times Geiz threatened your life, how many times Woz had tried to keep you from befriending the others, how many Riders you erased the history of. You were  _ not  _ going to become Oma Zi-o. You just weren’t.

Yet here you were.

You shout that he’s lying. You insist you wouldn’t do such a thing. You were going to be a beloved king. But you can tell that whatever you’re saying to convince yourself just isn’t working this time.

Trembling, you echo the words Geiz says to you on a daily basis: “I’m going to take you out right here.” And you  _ mean it _ .

You don’t want yourself to live in this future when so many others have died.

The first thing you do after you transform is shoot missiles at your future self, but he’s already transformed when the smoke clears. It doesn’t take more than a wave of his hand to throw you back several feet, and your wounds from Decade are only flaring up again, but you don’t care. You throw Decade’s watch onto your belt and transform for a second time.

You select Kuuga on your sword. Your attack is simply kicked back at you and you’re thrown aside like a rag doll. You try Kiva and get similar results.

And you never realized just how unbearably  _ loud _ your tech was until now. Every time you select a Rider’s power, your sword announces it, and the same song plays right after. Everything is just  _ too loud, _ your heartbeat, your breathing, your weaponry. You wish it would just  _ stop. _ Everything hurts and your ears are ringing and you don’t want to look at that mask anymore.

Why can’t you just  _ die?! _

...It takes a moment to realize how that sounds, but you almost don’t care. You want this twisted version of yourself gone for good.

And in a strange twist of fate, he tells you just how to do it: by giving up your Rider belt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So how about episode 15, huh?
> 
> In case you're wondering, yes, I wrote this chapter in one day. It took like five hours.


	5. Chapter 5

There is exactly one person you didn’t want to take advice from, and it’s yourself. You usually did anyway, because you were the only one you had most of the time, but you didn’t always like it. Yes, you had your uncle, and you took everything he said to heart, but there was no way you could burden him with most of the things in your life. So naturally, that meant you had to solve your own problems--or ignore them, if you could. And you really could, most of the time. But this wasn’t a problem you could pretend didn’t exist anymore; not when it was literally staring you in the face.

But again, you hated following your own advice, especially now that it was the most corrupt overlord of all time that was giving it. What an awful person you grew up to be. You can’t confidently say you’ve  _ always _ liked yourself as you are, but you never imagined you could be so evil. And now that evil version of yourself was telling you to give up your Rider belt. He was giving you a way out of this nightmarish future.

Maybe he hated himself, too. Maybe he loathed the person he became just as much as you did. And maybe he was trying to hide it under even more layers of self-importance than you on a regular basis.

You couldn’t know for sure, but you don’t think it mattered. You may not have always been great, but you didn’t hurt people out of some delusion. You had always tried to be kind, even in the face of people who weren’t. It was simple cause and effect: if you were nice to people, they would be nice in return. It certainly seemed to work on Geiz.

Speaking of Geiz, you still had to find him. Your future self had given you and Tsukuyomi a portal back into your own time, which meant that Geiz was still being attacked by that armored person.

You felt like you should be relieved to be home, but you couldn’t manage to muster up anything positive. All you had to do was turn around to see one of the giant mechs from before, still stationary for the moment. You ask Tsukuyomi how long they’ll stay like that.

How much longer before the world ended?

The answer you get does little to make you feel any better. You’re starting to think that nothing will.

When you find Geiz, his first reaction is to tell you to stay back, and you’re suddenly reminded of just how hostile he’d been to you that day. You still wonder if you had done something to upset him, or if he was really that serious about killing you all along. You hope it’s the first option. But you have more crucial things to be worrying about right now.

You had seen what you would become. Nothing mattered more to you now than preventing that, and saving Geiz’s life. You’re not quite sure why, but you don’t feel like you can lose him. Not after everything you’d been through together, and especially not after your trip to the future.

And yet,  _ you _ were the cause of his suffering. Both his and Tsukuyomi’s. You were the reason it was so hard for them to smile. You were the reason they had to be warriors instead of high school students.

“I really am Oma Zi-o…”

Saying it out loud makes you want to cry, but for some reason you’re trying to smile instead. You smile a lot, now that you’re thinking about it. You idly wonder when it became a reflex in these situations.

You pull out your Driver, unable to keep your arm from trembling, clutching it as hard as you can. This belt was what connected you to Geiz and Tsukuyomi in the first place. It had given your life a new purpose, made saving the world seem possible. It may have carried a lot of pain with it, but it was important to you. You don’t want to let it go. But you’ve made up your mind.

“I’m giving up on being a king.”

Was smiling supposed to hurt?

Geiz uses your name for the first time and you feel yourself faltering. You can’t keep trying to seem calm anymore. You need to get rid of this belt as soon as possible. So, with a pained cry, you throw it as hard as you can into the air, hoping that Geiz will do as you asked and destroy it.

Sure enough, all it takes is two elementally charged arrows to shatter it completely. The armored person collapses in response, and you’re starting to think that maybe they were never a person. A robot servant… it seemed almost painfully fitting. You never had many people on your side to begin with.

Everything seems quiet all of a sudden. Preventing that terrible future somehow felt like it would have been more difficult, but in reality, it was like ripping off a bandaid. You weren’t quite sure how you felt about that.

The large mechs had started burrowing into the ground, and your friends confirm that it means the world is safe. Almost immediately, you feel a weight lift off your shoulders. The prophetic dream that had been hovering over you for years could finally leave you alone.

Still, Geiz doesn’t look entirely convinced. That’s not too surprising. You’re just glad he doesn’t have murder in his eyes anymore. You don’t think you’d have the energy to deal with that right now.

You remind him that you only wanted to become king in the first place to save the world. If you ended up being the one destroying the world, then there’s no point to becoming one. You knew that for a fact. Saying it out loud shouldn’t have hurt so much.

Maybe it had something to do with everything else you gave up with that belt.

No threat to the world meant that Tsukuyomi and Geiz had no reason to stay in the past anymore. They were going to go back to a bright future, lead happy lives and never have to fight again.

Your only friends were going to leave you.

It’s hard to describe how you felt when they started walking away. A part of you was happy for them; they were finally going to live in a world that you didn’t destroy. That should have been your priority. It wasn’t like you really expected them to stay in the past with you, right? They had no obligation to. And you’re still not totally confident that Geiz ever saw you as a friend, even though you had once convinced yourself it was true.

It was selfish to want them to stay. You know that. And you know you’re doing the right thing by letting them go back to their time without any difficulties. But still, there was a pit in your stomach that just wasn’t going away.

Even telling Woz that you weren’t his overlord anymore hurt more than it should have. You still hadn’t forgotten about his alliance with the Time Jackers and how it affected you; why did you want  _ him _ of all people to stay?

_ Emotions are confusing, _ you think to yourself on your walk home. You had never really thought about what would happen once you saved the world. It always seemed like something that would happen later. And you thought you would be a king for it. Now neither of those things have happened and you’re most likely never going to see your friends again.

You suppose there’s a chance you’ll run into them about forty or fifty years down the line, but you have no clue where they’ll be living at that point. And that was  _ quite  _ a long time in the future. Not worth planning for yet. No, you’ll go back to your usual routine: dealing with things as they come.

Which means you’re going to have to deal with all these injuries. That wasn’t going to be fun. Being a Kamen Rider earned you a lot more wounds than normal, and most of them were from blunt force--meaning lots of ice packs and stealth. You never told your uncle about being a Kamen Rider, and you’re not about to start just because you can’t transform anymore. Besides, you’re good at sneaking ice packs by now. It wasn’t too much of an issue.

Facing your uncle the second you got back home earned mixed feelings. You definitely needed a familiar face who wasn’t going anywhere right now, but at the same time, you just want to isolate yourself in your room and not come out for a while. You need to think. Instead you find yourself explaining to your uncle that Woz, Geiz and Tsukuyomi aren’t going to come back.

You really wish that this was easier. It’s not like they were dead or anything--quite the opposite. They were going to be happier than they ever had been in their lives… and they were going to do it without you.

You want to be able to give your uncle some kind of good news to keep him from worrying, but you don’t have any. Sure, you could tell him about how those mechs weren’t going to destroy the world, but he never knew they were outside in the first place. Anything that could be considered good would take too much explaining and that’s the last thing you want to do right now.

So instead, you tell him about how you’d given up on being a king. He doesn’t seem happy, but he’s not angry or anything. More shocked than anything else. You can’t blame him; as he points out, you were so passionate about it for so many years. That, more than anything else, was probably what made this so hard for you.

Now that you thought about it, you didn’t have a lot of other passions in your life to take its place. You had hobbies, sure, but nothing you really wanted to pursue as a career. Maybe that’s what college was supposed to be for, but you hadn’t really thought about it. You usually liked not having to think about things, but now it just felt like you were more aimless than usual.

That’s when your uncle decided to tell you a story. He said once that he had a dream when he was younger, but missed his one opportunity to make it a reality. As it turned out, what he wanted was to work at a big-name watch company. And that dream may not have come true, but he had his own little clock shop now, and apparently that was enough to make him happy. He took a lofty goal that didn’t work out and spun it into something a little smaller.

Maybe… you could do that, too. You’re not sure what would be a simpler, less destructive version of “king,” but you think that you might be able to figure it out one day. Definitely not today. But someday.

Someday, time could start moving for you again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to come out. I had most of the chapter written for a while, but I couldn't figure out how to word the ending. It also seemed like a good idea to wait for more episodes to come out so I don't accidentally write him out of character in hindsight.
> 
> Also, yes, I ended up dividing episode 16 into two chapters. What can I say? There's a lot of character development that happens in it. And I don't want these chapters to be too long or else I'd practically never finish them. XD


End file.
